religion

By Salsabel Almanssori, University of Windsor and Muna Saleh, Concordia University of Edmonton | – World Hijab Day recognizes the millions of Muslim women and girls who wear the traditional Islamic headscarf. (The Conversation) – Around the world, Muslim girls in hijab are experiencing unique forms and heightened rates of gender and race-based violence and […]

Antisemitism

Jewish American Dilemmas: Netanyahu’s War Crimes, Trumpian Antisemitism and the Fringe Left

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Let’s face it. Israel under PM Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi), isn’t helping the fight against global Antisemitism, and is fueling the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) Movement. The war crimes in Gaza have been augmented by a recent conference led by Bibi, to re-colonize Gaza with renewed Haredim settlements. […]

Featured

How Biden inherited the War with an Iraqi Shiite Militia from Bush, Trump and Netanyahu

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The “Party of God Brigades” (Kata’ib Hizbullah) of Iraq struck the Tower 22 US military base in the far north of Jordan on the border with Syria on Sunday, killing three US military personnel and wounding dozens more. The Shiite militia said that it was part of its continued attempt […]

Iran

Muslims and Jews: Remembering Jewish School Days in Pre-Revolutionary Tehran

Nassrine Azimi

( The Chukogu Shimbun ) – HIROSHIMA —The elegant art deco building of Ettefagh, Iran’s famous Jewish school, still stands on a leafy avenue adjacent to Tehran University. Originally established by prominent Iraqis who had settled in Iran following Jewish pogroms and expulsions of the 1940s and early 50s in Iraq, Ettefagh started as a […]

Antisemitism

“Stop Weaponizing Antisemitism:” Ex-Harvard Hillel Leader

Common Dreams

Jessica Corbett ( Commondreams.org) – “For the safety of Jews and Palestinians, stop weaponizing antisemitism.” That’s the headline of a Friday op-ed from Bernie Steinberg, who was the executive director of Harvard Hillel from 1993 to 2010. Harvard University is among many U.S. higher education institutions—including Brandeis University, Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), […]

Islam

With Palestinian Struggle in Gaza, Tiktok has opened Rare Spaces of Empathy and Learning about Islam

The Conversation

By Nahid Widaatalla, University of Toronto | – (The Conversation) – The ongoing conflict in Gaza between Hamas and Israel is playing out on screens like never before. Through social media, millions are witnessing the violence that has killed thousands since Oct. 7. People have turned to social media to learn about the history and […]

Christianity

Pope and Pastor: “Prince of Peace rejected by the futile Logic of War;” “Christ in the Rubble”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – My mother was a Lutheran and the Coles were Catholics, though my grandfather fell away when he married a woman from the Brethren peace church. So it was striking to me that on this Christmas a Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem, Munther Isaac, and Pope Francis both made headlines with their […]

Christianity

A Merry Muslim Christmas from India’s Hyderabad, c. 1630: Jesus, the Dutch, and Diamonds

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The nativity of the Christ child is not solely an occasion of Christian spirituality, but has been celebrated through the ages by Muslim writers and painters, as well. As I have pointed out, the story of the Annunciation and the birth of Jesus is told in the Qur’an: Verses 19:17-35: […]

Anti-intellectualism

The Other Israel-Gaza Conflict: On Campus (Juan at Dawn)

Juan Cole

Excerpted from Dawn (Democracy for the Arab World Now) Israel’s total war on Gaza, following Hamas’s horrific terrorist attack on Oct. 7, has roiled higher education in the United States. The atrocities committed by Hamas in southern Israel two months ago have reverberated on many U.S. campuses, deeply traumatizing many Jewish students. But so too […]